Fusion 360 is great. I am no expert in in but i love it for what we do. We use it often in our videos to highlight certain points of interest in our machining projects. Fusion 360 gets better and more powerful with each update. Steve
me too, i have used NX for 5 years and Creo 2.0-4.0 for 2.5 years...but they can not compare with Fusion is so sweet and simple to use ! it will be my next partner in my career as CAD engineer !
John and Kevin, thanks for posting this. I signed up for the webinar yesterday but had some things come up and had to miss it. Nice job on the video debut Kevin! This was very useful. Thanks guys
Nice job Kevin. You did great during the training classes last January too! It gave me a boost to where I could actually start making parts and production runs for some companies since the class. Almost paid the machine off since then.
Thank you. I just want to note that the numbers you see on the flat pattern aren't the bend sequence. Currently these are just bend identifiers. It would still be up to the operator to determine the order of bending to make the part.
Hmm... could probably use that for other flat materials besides sheet metal... cardboard for custom boxes (perhaps on a flatbed "vinyl" cutter), or laser cut plastic comes to mind...
You are correct, it can be used for other materials as well. In the Autodesk sheet metal preview forum, a user was posting images he was creating of cardboard fold ups he was making for packing foods.
Thanks for the very clear demonstration. Pitching some ideas here for future sheet metal demos : It would be nice to have a demonstration how to apply sheet metal to an existing assembly. For example, I've designed a motor + gear + spindel mechanism, but would like to create a sheetmetal cover around it for protection/safety cover. What is a good strategy to start design such a cover. Another nice one, would be how to combine sheet metal for structural design. Like tormach uses sheetmetal to create their mill base. Since sheetmetal is more cost effective, it would really be a nice to learn to use fusion360 for that type of work.
Great tutorial and I learned a lot. I know this was just a fun widget to show what the software can do, but one thing really stood out to me, my break metal supervisor would have had my head if I had brought that design to him! It's been 10 years since I did break metal work, so maybe things have changed, but from what I remember that would be a very difficult, if not impossible part to bend up, at least with normal press tooling and keeping the outside faces free of marring. If all the flanges were facing out, no problem, or even if there was more distance along the bottom was greater, you could get a die in there. The mitered corners on the inside don't help either, squared off ones, with one side running through would make it significantly easier as well. I'd love to hear from a break press operator that I'm off base, and things have advanced a lot in the last 10 years. Keep up the great work!!
Hi Steven. You are correct that this was just a widget demo part. That being said, I don't think what I showed pushed the limits for a part that couldn't be made. I emailed a good friend of mine that runs a sheet metal fabrication business to get his opinion and he said he didn't see anything that wasn't makable. He did say he wouldn't want to do a huge production run of these, but he didn't see any real issues either. Thanks for asking the question and keeping me on my toes!
Mechanical Advantage thanks for the follow up. Like I said, I've been out of that design area for 10 years, and honestly I don't think they had changed how we did break work in house for quite a while before that. IIRC they pretty much worked with a sheer, press and really good welders, and 90% of it was 1/8" aluminum. And we were doing our design layouts in 2d AutoCAD, with some in house lisp programs for determining lengths. I really liked working with them, but they were a bit old school. I could see with a more modern press and cut flat stock, it would make doing some of that easier. Keep it up, I hope to learn more.
A sheet metal part like that is "bread & butter"for the business I work at. It would not be difficult to fold at all. I'm also the bunny that has to weld it so accurate folding makes that part of my job much easier.
Awesome video, I just bought Fusion myself, can't wait to start working in it within the next few weeks. One question I had after watching this video: Can you also add the stamp type/radius of certain machines. For the press to create this, each uses different values, you can LVD, Amada, etc etc... Where do you define the stamp settings for folding, so when you press unfold it will use the correct properties per machine/fold type.
At point 12:47. Im trying to add the smaller flange... but keep getting an error. Says its due to internal error, check body and bend parameters and try again... i have no idea what that means... the rest of the tutorial has worked fine up to this point..(which has been great)
excelent video ... to the point ....I am a beginner ... if I am to send out a piece to be cut and bend to a vendor ... should I flatten or both bend and flattened and how do I handle an export of a build that has multiple components
One of the best explanations of the sheet metal environment I’ve seen to date. Thanks Kevin. Can you apply sheet metal rules to acrylic and what would be the k factor for 3 mm acrylic?
very helpful indeed. Can i modify an imported drawing part (.sldprt) from solidworks in fusion 360. if yes how? i tried but parts seem not editable. Thanks
Hi! Very good video! I have a somewhat more complex question that is very much needed in metallurgy: how to draw a square to round folded model for? SolidWorks and Autodesq Inventors have well-defined tools for this function. I think Fusion 360 was missing this function. Maybe it will be added in the future??
If I want to cut this out on a plasma using a different cam program such as sheetcam, how do I export the dxf to sheetcam? Stated another way, where or how do I grab the dxf file of the flat pattern to export it. Also, how can I get the bend instructions onto a sheet of paper for manual bending in a finger brake?
Hi I'm completly new to fusion and have some questions, so excuse me in advance for some uneducated questions ^^ 1. how can i set the flange not to extrude orthogonal to the edge but in a certain angle? 2. is there an option to get perforations on the bending lines without sketching them manually? thanks in advance and the great video!
Something that i would like to see, Say you have a plasma table that has a built in engraver, It would be nice to see if you could generate code that engraved the bend lines, This could also be substituted in a Cardboard environment to use a creaser.
Hi. Thanks for the comment. I debated showing more about the process of using the integrated CAM tools to cut this shape out from a sheet. I didn't want to make the video too long and wanted this to be more of general overview to get started using the sheet metal tools. Maybe in the future we will do a video that covers the process of creating a setup for sheet metal and cutting the part using the plasma/laser/waterjet tools. To your question though, the plasma/laser/waterjet cutting tools do provide an etching option for the tool paths. It is possible to etch the bend lines into the flat pattern.
So I drew this C shaped part with 2 bends in it and I would like to close off both sides of the C, is there a flange feature that allows me to follow the conture of the C ob thos sides?
I love your videos. I have a few questions if you have the time. I have a light duty CNC that has a hotwire and mill on an arm that is the A axis. I would like to use the mill to cut foam sheets. Is there a way to bend the sheet metal so that the corners meet up at a 45 degree angle or even better, one flap butts up against the other so they are perpendicular from each other? I could create a new rule that will be my foam rule.
how do you change the angle of a flange after its been created? how do you change the length of the surface inbetween two legs? how do you define a bend line on an existing flat part at a specified location?
Thanks Kevin for this one, now for the next challenge - after seeing this video, I have been trying to create a flat pattern of a sheet metal cone but are unable to select a stationary face?? Any pointers - looking also to do a rectangle to round cone as well.
Hi Cameron. I'm glad you liked it. Unfortunately, things like flattening cones or creating square to rounds (lofted flanges) aren't in the initial sheet metal release. Keep you eye out for future updates to the sheet metal tools that will add this type of functionality.
I've seen designs where stitched cuts are placed on all the bend lines, so that the part can actually be bent by hand. Do you know of a good workflow to create that kind of stitching?
Great video I've learned a lot, but somehow drawing on a flat pattern does not make any changes to folded part. It only works when you unfold the part and then draw on it. Any ideas why this is like that?
A great video. One of my challenges is to precut flat, flexible plastic sheeting to form compound curves. Sort of like an onion dome. Would that be possible in the sheet metal modeling environment?
Hi Ron. Fusion 360 sheet metal bending duplicates what can be done in a press brake. Fusion won't do bends that need to account for deformation of the material like you mention. There is an 3rd party add-in for Fusion 360 that might do what you are after. Have a look at www.exactflat.com
Welcome Kevin, great job on the video, just one question , how would really make the part you just have drawn, also say you wanted to have the sides close together to weld, like touching for a tig weld. maybe you should try to make a simple box and lets see how that goes. i have tried and found it just about useless..
Thanks for the question. I meant to add some more info about that to the end of the video but forgot about it. You can do some of what you are talking about by using the push/pull command and move face command. This is the initial release of sheet metal for Fusion 360. There are two additional updates planned that will bring capabilities such as a corner seam tool in addition to other sheet metal tools. I've used these sheet metal tools to manufacture many parts that have been used for HVAC units that you will find on top of hospitals, schools, shopping malls, etc. The initial set of commands for sheet metal cover quite a few needs for sheet metal parts and when the 2nd and 3rd wave a sheet metal tools are released, I think you will find a pretty comprehensive and capable set of tools for creating sheet metal parts.
Watch the tutorial I posted on that. You can change your sheet metal rules or just override them when creating the flanges. Change the bend radius to 0.001" and model the two flanges you want on the outside first with the bend position set to inside. After the first two have been modeled, click the flange tool and select the other two edges also selecting the bend position as inside. They will tuck in.
I know this video is a year old, but I am just learning Fusion sheet metal. I followed this video step by step. The only problem is, when my model is unfolded, it is not exactly like yours. The long side flanges are reversed side to side. The pointy on is on the bottom and the clipped one is on the top. Can you explain why? I have ver 2.0.4391.
Hey Kevin. Good to see sheet metal in fusion. Just a question. I'm an inventor user, in an inventor sheet metal environment you can choose the type of cut you would like to make, in doing so the cut tool will make "square edge" cuts where your extrusion intersects the model. From memory I think You can change cut to "cut normal" and also "cut across bends". In other words, no need to unfold as demonstrated, complicated cuts can involve k-factor compensation and so on. Does fusion not have this option?
Dave Smith Hi Dave. I've used Inventor as well, so I know the features you are talking about. The Fusion team has made the decision that the only way to create a cut that goes across a bend is to unfold the bends and make the cut in the flattened state. So you won't find cut across bend or project flat pattern. There is currently no cut normal option, so we will have to see if they add that to a future sheet metal update. It is possible to create a normal cut, but you need to use a more manual process to split the faces and then the push/pull command to cut the split faces normal to in order to get a square edge.
Another option, if the cut while bent more accurately reflects the design intent, is to cut while bent, flatten, then Project/Include the outer edges of the hole and cut again. It's a little more work, but could be appropriate in some cases.
That would also be controlled by the rules. Almost everything about the look of the part is controlled by the sheet metal rules. The option I changed controlled what happens when bends meet. There are a couple of ways to control the small flange you are referring to such as not having the bend start tangent to the existing face. There are also some settings that control the bend relief size and the minimum remnant for cuts.
Cool video. But quite honestly, I've found sheet metal modeling to be useless for a mechanical designer beyond the quick sanity check. Sure, it makes it look pretty, but complicates the hell out of the model, makes it (and every assembly it's in) incredibly "heavy," and locks the sheet metal house into something that may not be needed or even worse, possibly even a "special." Many will just remodel it from the print anyway to get a flat pattern that works and is accurate for their use. Throw some bend radii call-out's as needed on a "square" model and let the sheet metal guys do what they do, IMO. _Especially_ in cases where joints and whatnot are going to be welded, which admittingly is the category most of the 100's of sheet metal parts I've designed fall into. Personally, if you're designing sheet metal I'd recommend learning what's feasible when it comes to tolerances for things like the distance between holes in two flanges with 4 or 5 bends in between them. The manufacturer will gladly make the part for you while leaving you with a major case of sticker shock because you don't know they'll be machining or lasering those holes after bending instead of punching the flat pattern. Also, even if you do very little sheet metal work, schedule a visit/tour with your primary sheet metal vendor to find out _exactly what _*_they_*_ want/prefer_ from you, what their capabilities are, and what kinds of features/call-out's are most likely to result in giving you sticker shock. Sheet metal isn't immune to "I don't want that job" type of bids, but I've found there is a pretty fine line between those bids and real bids depending on the competition in your area, just how big (or small) the vendor is, proto work with or without production to follow (a small shop may gladly take on a very complicated part when the qty is 1 but absolutely not want you to come back with production qty's), long run contracts with staggered deliveries, etc, etc. Visits/tours can clear this stuff up along with teaching you quite a bit and making you a better engineer. Just some things to think about!
A competent person would discuss the prints with the shop providing the work prior to finalizing the design, and would not have any surprises on the pricing, at the end of the day.
You bring up some interesting points for discussion. The first would be will sheet metals parts be designed in house, or will the be produced by a vendor? There is a good chance that if parts are being produced by a vendor that all the vendor will want is the outside folded dimensions of the part and they aren't interested in the flat patterns, k factor values, or radii that are in the folded model as their machines will use their own values that the vendor has calculated. If the parts are to be made in house, bend studies can be performed to determine bend radii and k factors for each die and material. Once those bend studies are done, extremely accurate parts can be produced. I worked for a company where a large part of my job was creating sheet metal parts. These parts went straight from CAD to laser cut flatter patterns that were bent up into finished parts. The parts could get fairly complex and I don't recall every have to change a part because something didn't line up after forming. Thanks for pointing out some of the things to think about when creating sheet metal parts.
Wrenchmonkey this isn't always possible, and under the right circumstances a competent designer will make it completely unnecessary. The specific circumstances are large company, high volume, purchasing "separate" from engineering, and part designs that are repetitive in nature. Also, having rock solid call-out's on the prints. Basically, once you gain experience you learn how and where to leave the part as "wide open" as possible. "Spot weld corners OK, max bend radius = X, min bend radius (i.e., make it as small as you can, but I don't care what the value is, I know it'll be around ≈ Y), A -> critical surface (customer will see this A LOT) weld splatter and tooling marks unacceptable, G -> non critical surface (never seen) do whatever you want," etc, etc. Use larger clearance holes and loose location tolerances when holes are across many bends, and combine that with button head screws that have integral washers (the proper name escapes me at the moment). Make sure PEMNUTs are placed on the correct part and that there is ample access to install them (or weld nuts or whatever). (I mostly work on enclosures if you haven't noticed yet LOL) *NOW,* for new proto parts, or the guy/company that rarely deals with sheet metal, *absolutely get with the vendor.* This is how you gain experience, and oftentimes is the point that cost saving design changes on already established parts are found. IMO, gaining knowledge in this manner is a critical skill needed for all manufacturing processes, and with manufacturing moving offshore and colleges churning out grads with little to no real world experience, it is *very* lacking with engineers today. This is where ±.0001" tolerances on hole locations 5 feet apart come from. As well as "impossible" parts. Sure, they are freaking awesome in their function in an assy on the computer, but will cost a fortune or literally be impossible to manufacture. I've seen mid level engineers churn out such parts. Anyway, sorry for the long post. Especially as I think we are really on the same page here. Basically, communicate and visit with your vendors (as well as customers) to learn as much as possible about various processes you deal with *_as that's best path becoming a competent designer._*
Mechanical Advantage everything you've said is spot on. In my work, everything sheet metal has been contracted & like I said in my post above, is best to be designed and called out "as open as possible." Just the opposite when it came to machined parts. 95% in house. We developed certain methods & practices to machine a part in as few ops as possible, and applied those methods everywhere. Couple examples are back boring /facing & using thread certs. All the "back" operations allowed us to machine tables and other large parts completely in one setup. Thread certs allowed tiny (comparatively) threaded holes to come off a 50 taper machine with great accuracy and tool life (at the exchange of someone installing the certs, but that labor was much cheaper). "Window" fixtures on parts going into a horizontal allowed a part to be finished without ever unclamping the part. Now, all of this was meaningless if the engineers never knew about it, because we had to design for it from the beginning or it wouldn't work. If we were a contractor we wouldn't want customers trying to design for this stuff, we would want the freedom to apply it as we see fit. Interesting points, indeed!! There's a lot of knowledge in some RUclips comment sections!! If only it was easier to find.
Totally disagree, +Iceberg86300. I have done extensive studies to get my bend deductions, bend radii, and K factors dialed in for all my materials and thicknesses. I can get a +-.007 consistency every time with a flat pattern that "I" generated in Solidworks. Sheet metal isn't just a white-haired art any longer. It is a proven science that is very predictable.
Does Fusion number the bends based on order of creation by the user, or order required to bend the piece using a brake? Since some bends would restrict access to others if done out of order.
Currently, the numbers are just bend identifiers. The operator would still be the one to figure out the bend order to produce the folded part. I suspect we will see the ability to renumber the bends in a future release so that the bend numbers would also represent the bend order. That will still rely on someone knowing the proper order to fold the bends however.
In the current release of sheet metal, no. These are just bend identifiers now and I couldn't figure out a way to override the numbering. I think we will see this ability in a future update. Fingers crossed!
The gaps are controlled by the sheet metal rule that is in use. I could have tightened up the seam a lot. There are also corner options meant to make things easier to weld up.
So I have been trying to figure this out gor s while: how do you pick the "right"gaga of sheet metal to use? I have not found anything on this important topic and it seems that everyone is just going by experience!!!
You may want to start by looking at sheet metal gauges on Wikipedia for some explanation of them. What is the right gauge? The one that meets the criteria for your design. Each gauge and material type will have a unique k-factor. Different bend dies will also product different bend radii. You might even find this will vary between 2 different machines in the same shop. I hope that helps a little bit. If you have questions, ask away.
Is there a command to create a closed corner where 2 bends meet without having to create a rule for it? In the part of the videos where you showed the rules, that seems like it should only be for the first portion you showed which was material type and thickness, k factor, and radius, and that should always be where you start before you ever start to draw your sheet metal part. Having the corner condition locked into the rule of the part wouldn't work if you had some corners you want closed but maybe others not. Just having a button with a command to select 2 bends and close the corner would be nice or more like what i am used to. Other than that it looks like a step in the right direction for an affordable sheet metal design tool.
Each time you create a flange, you can override the rule that controls how the bends meet. So the rule is the default, but you can change it on the fly.
Thanks for the question. I meant to add some more info about that to the end of the video but forgot about it. You can do some of what you are talking about by using the push/pull command and move face command. This is the initial release of sheet metal for Fusion 360. There are two additional updates planned that will bring capabilities such as a corner seam tool in addition to other sheet metal tools.
Watch the tutorial I posted on that. You can change your sheet metal rules or just override them when creating the flanges. Change the bend radius to 0.001" and model the two flanges you want on the outside first with the bend position set to inside. After the first two have been modeled, click the flange tool and select the other two edges also selecting the bend position as inside. They will tuck in.
How can we design the sheet metal if we are going to weld the corners ? I would like to create a simple four wall sheetmetal box that will not leak. Thanks
Brian W Hi Brian. There are different corner options that can be set in the rule. One of those corner options is called linear weld. I didn't show that as an option ok the model but you could create a rule that would leave you with only a very small gap for welding.
OK, but can I get some credit for orienting the flat pattern so the majority of the bends are up bends? See.....making your job a little better every day ;-)
Honestly I would have orientated the part where most of the beds are down. When you are cutting a part on a laser or whatever other machine you use the better side of the part is always going to be the side of the material you see when it is cutting. If you bend it up from that orientation, when you look at the part the outside of the part is going to have the rougher side of the cut and the part of the material that was sitting on the slats that might have got scratched.
I've watched a lot of Fusion 360 tutorials, and this is by far the best. Detail about keys being hit, why things are being done, etc. is spot-on.
Welcome Kevin, a new voice at NYC CNC. An impressive little tutorial
Thanks Andreas! I'm glad you find the overview useful.
Fusion 360 is great. I am no expert in in but i love it for what we do. We use it often in our videos to highlight certain points of interest in our machining projects. Fusion 360 gets better and more powerful with each update.
Steve
me too, i have used NX for 5 years and Creo 2.0-4.0 for 2.5 years...but they can not compare with Fusion is so sweet and simple to use ! it will be my next partner in my career as CAD engineer !
You guys did a perfect job on this tutorial. I learned more in 15 minutes than I can believe! Fantastic
Welcome to RUclips Kevin ;)
Nice quick simple intro to sheet metal :D I liked it ;)
Thanks Stephen. Hopefully the video helps you to get started with the sheet metal tools.
Thanks Byron!
Very VERY cool feature. And I like this new presenter, clear voice and to the point! Good stuff.
Glad you liked the video!
Great job Kevin! Very well presented and simple to understand. Welcome to NYC CNC RUclips!
Thank you. I'm very excited to be here!
Great job Kevin! !!! I really got alot out of your advanced Fusion cam class . You and John are the best.
Thanks Tony! I hope you and Vic had a safe trip back to Alabama. Thanks for making the drive up to attend the class.
John and Kevin, thanks for posting this. I signed up for the webinar yesterday but had some things come up and had to miss it. Nice job on the video debut Kevin! This was very useful. Thanks guys
Thank you. I'm glad you found it useful.
I wanted to make the online class today, but shop demands got in the way! thanks for sharing!
Nice job Kevin. You did great during the training classes last January too! It gave me a boost to where I could actually start making parts and production runs for some companies since the class. Almost paid the machine off since then.
That's awesome! I love to hear things like this.
Awesome. Nice that it also builds the bend sequence.
Thank you. I just want to note that the numbers you see on the flat pattern aren't the bend sequence. Currently these are just bend identifiers. It would still be up to the operator to determine the order of bending to make the part.
Hmm... could probably use that for other flat materials besides sheet metal... cardboard for custom boxes (perhaps on a flatbed "vinyl" cutter), or laser cut plastic comes to mind...
You are correct, it can be used for other materials as well. In the Autodesk sheet metal preview forum, a user was posting images he was creating of cardboard fold ups he was making for packing foods.
I'll be using it to design my own small cardboard shipping boxes then cutting them out on my laser cutter.
Thanks for getting Kevin involved John, he has a lot of awesome to share. And I don't want him to know this, but I think he's an ok dude as well. :-)
+1
Thanks for the very clear demonstration.
Pitching some ideas here for future sheet metal demos :
It would be nice to have a demonstration how to apply sheet metal to an existing assembly.
For example, I've designed a motor + gear + spindel mechanism, but would like to create a sheetmetal cover around it for protection/safety cover.
What is a good strategy to start design such a cover.
Another nice one, would be how to combine sheet metal for structural design. Like tormach uses sheetmetal to create their mill base. Since sheetmetal is more cost effective, it would really be a nice to learn to use fusion360 for that type of work.
Hi Tom. I'm glad you found it useful. Thanks for the potential future topics.
Fusion is so simple and useful! Autodesk rules!
The tab to switch dimension thing was super helpful, I had wondered that for a long time
Good job Kevin !!!
Thanks Greg! Hope things are going well in your new job.
Very good job explaining. . I'll have to watch all your videos.
Great video. I’ll probably have to watch it 3 times to remember everything.
I had to do a double take when the voice wasn't John. Nice job Kevin.
Thank you. I should have thrown out a warning to not change the channel or adjust the volume haha
This is perfect! I have been designing my own cardboard boxes in Illustrator then cutting it out on my CO2 laser cutter. This will save a lot of time!
Great tutorial and I learned a lot.
I know this was just a fun widget to show what the software can do, but one thing really stood out to me, my break metal supervisor would have had my head if I had brought that design to him!
It's been 10 years since I did break metal work, so maybe things have changed, but from what I remember that would be a very difficult, if not impossible part to bend up, at least with normal press tooling and keeping the outside faces free of marring. If all the flanges were facing out, no problem, or even if there was more distance along the bottom was greater, you could get a die in there. The mitered corners on the inside don't help either, squared off ones, with one side running through would make it significantly easier as well.
I'd love to hear from a break press operator that I'm off base, and things have advanced a lot in the last 10 years.
Keep up the great work!!
Hi Steven. You are correct that this was just a widget demo part. That being said, I don't think what I showed pushed the limits for a part that couldn't be made. I emailed a good friend of mine that runs a sheet metal fabrication business to get his opinion and he said he didn't see anything that wasn't makable. He did say he wouldn't want to do a huge production run of these, but he didn't see any real issues either. Thanks for asking the question and keeping me on my toes!
Mechanical Advantage thanks for the follow up. Like I said, I've been out of that design area for 10 years, and honestly I don't think they had changed how we did break work in house for quite a while before that. IIRC they pretty much worked with a sheer, press and really good welders, and 90% of it was 1/8" aluminum. And we were doing our design layouts in 2d AutoCAD, with some in house lisp programs for determining lengths. I really liked working with them, but they were a bit old school. I could see with a more modern press and cut flat stock, it would make doing some of that easier.
Keep it up, I hope to learn more.
A sheet metal part like that is "bread & butter"for the business I work at. It would not be difficult to fold at all. I'm also the bunny that has to weld it so accurate folding makes that part of my job much easier.
Awesome video, I just bought Fusion myself, can't wait to start working in it within the next few weeks. One question I had after watching this video: Can you also add the stamp type/radius of certain machines. For the press to create this, each uses different values, you can LVD, Amada, etc etc... Where do you define the stamp settings for folding, so when you press unfold it will use the correct properties per machine/fold type.
At point 12:47. Im trying to add the smaller flange... but keep getting an error.
Says its due to internal error, check body and bend parameters and try again...
i have no idea what that means... the rest of the tutorial has worked fine up to this point..(which has been great)
Impressive tutorial!
excelent video ... to the point ....I am a beginner ... if I am to send out a piece to be cut and bend to a vendor ... should I flatten or both bend and flattened and how do I handle an export of a build that has multiple components
Can you export the flat pattern as a DXF?
You can now,. It's in the December 2017 update.
Thank you for this video!
One of the best explanations of the sheet metal environment I’ve seen to date. Thanks Kevin. Can you apply sheet metal rules to acrylic and what would be the k factor for 3 mm acrylic?
very helpful indeed. Can i modify an imported drawing part (.sldprt) from solidworks in fusion 360. if yes how? i tried but parts seem not editable. Thanks
In the sheet metal rule, or when you are selecting where to pull your flanges from, can you select ID or OD somewhere?
A very concise and well done tutorial. Thanks very much
very helpful video. It allowed me to do my first flat pattern
Hi! Very good video! I have a somewhat more complex question that is very much needed in metallurgy: how to draw a square to round folded model for? SolidWorks and Autodesq Inventors have well-defined tools for this function. I think Fusion 360 was missing this function. Maybe it will be added in the future??
Excellent intro. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks!
Nicely demonstrated, thanks. One question: do you know of any way of doing a divergent/convergent cone in flat metal?
If I want to cut this out on a plasma using a different cam program such as sheetcam, how do I export the dxf to sheetcam? Stated another way, where or how do I grab the dxf file of the flat pattern to export it. Also, how can I get the bend instructions onto a sheet of paper for manual bending in a finger brake?
Hi I'm completly new to fusion and have some questions, so excuse me in advance for some uneducated questions ^^
1. how can i set the flange not to extrude orthogonal to the edge but in a certain angle?
2. is there an option to get perforations on the bending lines without sketching them manually?
thanks in advance and the great video!
Excellent tips!
Wow got me going in under 13min super awesome tutorial! Thanks.
Something that i would like to see, Say you have a plasma table that has a built in engraver, It would be nice to see if you could generate code that engraved the bend lines, This could also be substituted in a Cardboard environment to use a creaser.
Hi. Thanks for the comment. I debated showing more about the process of using the integrated CAM tools to cut this shape out from a sheet. I didn't want to make the video too long and wanted this to be more of general overview to get started using the sheet metal tools. Maybe in the future we will do a video that covers the process of creating a setup for sheet metal and cutting the part using the plasma/laser/waterjet tools.
To your question though, the plasma/laser/waterjet cutting tools do provide an etching option for the tool paths. It is possible to etch the bend lines into the flat pattern.
So I drew this C shaped part with 2 bends in it and I would like to close off both sides of the C, is there a flange feature that allows me to follow the conture of the C ob thos sides?
Excellent video!
First video for Kevin? I think not! Good job!
Kelsey Smith Thank you. I haven't done a ton, but this one isn't my first. I hope you found it helpful.
I love your videos. I have a few questions if you have the time. I have a light duty CNC that has a hotwire and mill on an arm that is the A axis. I would like to use the mill to cut foam sheets. Is there a way to bend the sheet metal so that the corners meet up at a 45 degree angle or even better, one flap butts up against the other so they are perpendicular from each other?
I could create a new rule that will be my foam rule.
Great video! Clear and concise!
Thank you. Happy to hear you liked it.
how do you change the angle of a flange after its been created? how do you change the length of the surface inbetween two legs? how do you define a bend line on an existing flat part at a specified location?
Like it. Thanks Kevin. Very clear.
Thanks Paul. I'm glad you found it useful.
I'm assuming that you can also use a standard mill cam operation, if one doesn't have a fancy Plasma or Laser cutter.
Yep. After switching to the CAM workspace, all of the tools available in CAM would be available to the user for this.
Thanks Kevin for this one, now for the next challenge - after seeing this video, I have been trying to create a flat pattern of a sheet metal cone but are unable to select a stationary face?? Any pointers - looking also to do a rectangle to round cone as well.
Hi Cameron. I'm glad you liked it. Unfortunately, things like flattening cones or creating square to rounds (lofted flanges) aren't in the initial sheet metal release. Keep you eye out for future updates to the sheet metal tools that will add this type of functionality.
Sweet. Very Bob Ross.
Great video Kevin! Let me know if you ever need a sheet metal part made.
Glad you liked it, and I'll let you know if I ever need some sheet metal parts.
I've seen designs where stitched cuts are placed on all the bend lines, so that the part can actually be bent by hand. Do you know of a good workflow to create that kind of stitching?
Is there a rule for if you want the corners touching for welding. As the cap looks to big as it is. Cheers.
Nice . you guys are doing great
Great video I've learned a lot, but somehow drawing on a flat pattern does not make any changes to folded part. It only works when you unfold the part and then draw on it. Any ideas why this is like that?
Oooooooooooooooooh yea I've been waiting for this that's awesome!!!!!
Very cool. So you can CAM the cutting of the flat pattern. But.. can you produce a program for a cnc press break? I will have to play with this.
Hi Devin. Fusion won't do that part for you. It will only create the flat pattern. It won't control a press brake.
Awesome, thanks
A great video. One of my challenges is to precut flat, flexible plastic sheeting to form compound curves. Sort of like an onion dome. Would that be possible in the sheet metal modeling environment?
Hi Ron. Fusion 360 sheet metal bending duplicates what can be done in a press brake. Fusion won't do bends that need to account for deformation of the material like you mention. There is an 3rd party add-in for Fusion 360 that might do what you are after. Have a look at www.exactflat.com
Welcome Kevin, great job on the video, just one question , how would really make the part you just have drawn, also say you wanted to have the sides close together to weld, like touching for a tig weld. maybe you should try to make a simple box and lets see how that goes. i have tried and found it just about useless..
Thanks for the question. I meant to add some more info about that to the end of the video but forgot about it. You can do some of what you are talking about by using the push/pull command and move face command. This is the initial release of sheet metal for Fusion 360. There are two additional updates planned that will bring capabilities such as a corner seam tool in addition to other sheet metal tools.
I've used these sheet metal tools to manufacture many parts that have been used for HVAC units that you will find on top of hospitals, schools, shopping malls, etc. The initial set of commands for sheet metal cover quite a few needs for sheet metal parts and when the 2nd and 3rd wave a sheet metal tools are released, I think you will find a pretty comprehensive and capable set of tools for creating sheet metal parts.
Watch the tutorial I posted on that. You can change your sheet metal rules or just override them when creating the flanges. Change the bend radius to 0.001" and model the two flanges you want on the outside first with the bend position set to inside. After the first two have been modeled, click the flange tool and select the other two edges also selecting the bend position as inside. They will tuck in.
Is there an automated brake that takes G code to do the bends?
Yes, most power brakes made now are CNC, we have two at our school.
Thank you so much for this video. Very helpful.
thanks awesome video
Awesome video! Thank you very much :)
How do you reveal the bend lines in the drawing? When i unfold the green bendlines aren't visible.
Thank you!
I know this video is a year old, but I am just learning Fusion sheet metal. I followed this video step by step. The only problem is, when my model is unfolded, it is not exactly like yours. The long side flanges are reversed side to side. The pointy on is on the bottom and the clipped one is on the top. Can you explain why? I have ver 2.0.4391.
Cheers mate
Great stuff! Thanks!
How do you feature and draw a rolled bead line where you would roll a bead line for strength on a piece of sheet or a bead edge.
Can I change K factor to bend deduction in setup like in solidworks?
Great video!!
Thanks Mitch! Hopefully it helps you get started with sheet metal in Fusion.
Hey Kevin. Good to see sheet metal in fusion. Just a question. I'm an inventor user, in an inventor sheet metal environment you can choose the type of cut you would like to make, in doing so the cut tool will make "square edge" cuts where your extrusion intersects the model. From memory I think You can change cut to "cut normal" and also "cut across bends". In other words, no need to unfold as demonstrated, complicated cuts can involve k-factor compensation and so on. Does fusion not have this option?
Dave Smith Hi Dave. I've used Inventor as well, so I know the features you are talking about.
The Fusion team has made the decision that the only way to create a cut that goes across a bend is to unfold the bends and make the cut in the flattened state. So you won't find cut across bend or project flat pattern.
There is currently no cut normal option, so we will have to see if they add that to a future sheet metal update. It is possible to create a normal cut, but you need to use a more manual process to split the faces and then the push/pull command to cut the split faces normal to in order to get a square edge.
Another option, if the cut while bent more accurately reflects the design intent, is to cut while bent, flatten, then Project/Include the outer edges of the hole and cut again. It's a little more work, but could be appropriate in some cases.
Thanks for sharing, the little tab is a bit ugly like the old corners, how do you fix that?
That would also be controlled by the rules. Almost everything about the look of the part is controlled by the sheet metal rules. The option I changed controlled what happens when bends meet. There are a couple of ways to control the small flange you are referring to such as not having the bend start tangent to the existing face. There are also some settings that control the bend relief size and the minimum remnant for cuts.
Mechanical Advantage seem much more powerful that the sheet metal of solidworks, fusion it's a game changer imho
wondeful, thank you very much for your video !
Great Video!! Thanks!!!
Cool video.
But quite honestly, I've found sheet metal modeling to be useless for a mechanical designer beyond the quick sanity check.
Sure, it makes it look pretty, but complicates the hell out of the model, makes it (and every assembly it's in) incredibly "heavy," and locks the sheet metal house into something that may not be needed or even worse, possibly even a "special." Many will just remodel it from the print anyway to get a flat pattern that works and is accurate for their use.
Throw some bend radii call-out's as needed on a "square" model and let the sheet metal guys do what they do, IMO. _Especially_ in cases where joints and whatnot are going to be welded, which admittingly is the category most of the 100's of sheet metal parts I've designed fall into. Personally, if you're designing sheet metal I'd recommend learning what's feasible when it comes to tolerances for things like the distance between holes in two flanges with 4 or 5 bends in between them. The manufacturer will gladly make the part for you while leaving you with a major case of sticker shock because you don't know they'll be machining or lasering those holes after bending instead of punching the flat pattern. Also, even if you do very little sheet metal work, schedule a visit/tour with your primary sheet metal vendor to find out _exactly what _*_they_*_ want/prefer_ from you, what their capabilities are, and what kinds of features/call-out's are most likely to result in giving you sticker shock. Sheet metal isn't immune to "I don't want that job" type of bids, but I've found there is a pretty fine line between those bids and real bids depending on the competition in your area, just how big (or small) the vendor is, proto work with or without production to follow (a small shop may gladly take on a very complicated part when the qty is 1 but absolutely not want you to come back with production qty's), long run contracts with staggered deliveries, etc, etc. Visits/tours can clear this stuff up along with teaching you quite a bit and making you a better engineer.
Just some things to think about!
A competent person would discuss the prints with the shop providing the work prior to finalizing the design, and would not have any surprises on the pricing, at the end of the day.
You bring up some interesting points for discussion. The first would be will sheet metals parts be designed in house, or will the be produced by a vendor? There is a good chance that if parts are being produced by a vendor that all the vendor will want is the outside folded dimensions of the part and they aren't interested in the flat patterns, k factor values, or radii that are in the folded model as their machines will use their own values that the vendor has calculated. If the parts are to be made in house, bend studies can be performed to determine bend radii and k factors for each die and material. Once those bend studies are done, extremely accurate parts can be produced. I worked for a company where a large part of my job was creating sheet metal parts. These parts went straight from CAD to laser cut flatter patterns that were bent up into finished parts. The parts could get fairly complex and I don't recall every have to change a part because something didn't line up after forming.
Thanks for pointing out some of the things to think about when creating sheet metal parts.
Wrenchmonkey this isn't always possible, and under the right circumstances a competent designer will make it completely unnecessary. The specific circumstances are large company, high volume, purchasing "separate" from engineering, and part designs that are repetitive in nature. Also, having rock solid call-out's on the prints. Basically, once you gain experience you learn how and where to leave the part as "wide open" as possible. "Spot weld corners OK, max bend radius = X, min bend radius (i.e., make it as small as you can, but I don't care what the value is, I know it'll be around ≈ Y), A -> critical surface (customer will see this A LOT) weld splatter and tooling marks unacceptable, G -> non critical surface (never seen) do whatever you want," etc, etc. Use larger clearance holes and loose location tolerances when holes are across many bends, and combine that with button head screws that have integral washers (the proper name escapes me at the moment). Make sure PEMNUTs are placed on the correct part and that there is ample access to install them (or weld nuts or whatever). (I mostly work on enclosures if you haven't noticed yet LOL)
*NOW,* for new proto parts, or the guy/company that rarely deals with sheet metal, *absolutely get with the vendor.* This is how you gain experience, and oftentimes is the point that cost saving design changes on already established parts are found.
IMO, gaining knowledge in this manner is a critical skill needed for all manufacturing processes, and with manufacturing moving offshore and colleges churning out grads with little to no real world experience, it is *very* lacking with engineers today. This is where ±.0001" tolerances on hole locations 5 feet apart come from. As well as "impossible" parts. Sure, they are freaking awesome in their function in an assy on the computer, but will cost a fortune or literally be impossible to manufacture. I've seen mid level engineers churn out such parts.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. Especially as I think we are really on the same page here.
Basically, communicate and visit with your vendors (as well as customers) to learn as much as possible about various processes you deal with *_as that's best path becoming a competent designer._*
Mechanical Advantage everything you've said is spot on. In my work, everything sheet metal has been contracted & like I said in my post above, is best to be designed and called out "as open as possible."
Just the opposite when it came to machined parts. 95% in house. We developed certain methods & practices to machine a part in as few ops as possible, and applied those methods everywhere. Couple examples are back boring /facing & using thread certs. All the "back" operations allowed us to machine tables and other large parts completely in one setup. Thread certs allowed tiny (comparatively) threaded holes to come off a 50 taper machine with great accuracy and tool life (at the exchange of someone installing the certs, but that labor was much cheaper).
"Window" fixtures on parts going into a horizontal allowed a part to be finished without ever unclamping the part.
Now, all of this was meaningless if the engineers never knew about it, because we had to design for it from the beginning or it wouldn't work.
If we were a contractor we wouldn't want customers trying to design for this stuff, we would want the freedom to apply it as we see fit.
Interesting points, indeed!! There's a lot of knowledge in some RUclips comment sections!! If only it was easier to find.
Totally disagree, +Iceberg86300. I have done extensive studies to get my bend deductions, bend radii, and K factors dialed in for all my materials and thicknesses. I can get a +-.007 consistency every time with a flat pattern that "I" generated in Solidworks. Sheet metal isn't just a white-haired art any longer. It is a proven science that is very predictable.
Excellent !!! Thank you
Thanks Barry. I hope you can use this as a starting point to use the sheet metal tools in Fusion.
thanks a lot for the for explaining
excellent tutorial ..
Does Fusion number the bends based on order of creation by the user, or order required to bend the piece using a brake? Since some bends would restrict access to others if done out of order.
Currently, the numbers are just bend identifiers. The operator would still be the one to figure out the bend order to produce the folded part. I suspect we will see the ability to renumber the bends in a future release so that the bend numbers would also represent the bend order. That will still rely on someone knowing the proper order to fold the bends however.
Very cool, But John you don't have your upbeat, excited voice on this one! R U OK? The new Sheetmetal option is gonna be a great addition. Thanks!!!!
I love you!!! Thank you!
Does the numbering of the bends on the drawing correlate to the sequence the bends should be done in?
In the current release of sheet metal, no. These are just bend identifiers now and I couldn't figure out a way to override the numbering. I think we will see this ability in a future update. Fingers crossed!
I'd like to see a video on weldable overlap tabs for spot welding seams.
This might be a newbie question but are the gaps supposed to be that big? Or is that enough to weld together
The gaps are controlled by the sheet metal rule that is in use. I could have tightened up the seam a lot. There are also corner options meant to make things easier to weld up.
Mechanical Advantage Thanks for the reply do you that no you can do a video on those weld options and tightening up those gaps?
How to add a straight or spherical impression for like a 90 degree angle to add strength.
Thanks a lot!
Perfect!
So I have been trying to figure this out gor s while: how do you pick the "right"gaga of sheet metal to use? I have not found anything on this important topic and it seems that everyone is just going by experience!!!
You may want to start by looking at sheet metal gauges on Wikipedia for some explanation of them. What is the right gauge? The one that meets the criteria for your design. Each gauge and material type will have a unique k-factor. Different bend dies will also product different bend radii. You might even find this will vary between 2 different machines in the same shop. I hope that helps a little bit. If you have questions, ask away.
Is there a command to create a closed corner where 2 bends meet without having to create a rule for it? In the part of the videos where you showed the rules, that seems like it should only be for the first portion you showed which was material type and thickness, k factor, and radius, and that should always be where you start before you ever start to draw your sheet metal part. Having the corner condition locked into the rule of the part wouldn't work if you had some corners you want closed but maybe others not. Just having a button with a command to select 2 bends and close the corner would be nice or more like what i am used to. Other than that it looks like a step in the right direction for an affordable sheet metal design tool.
Each time you create a flange, you can override the rule that controls how the bends meet. So the rule is the default, but you can change it on the fly.
Finally
Mind! Blown! :-)
How would you get fold over corners that would be spot welded together? Instead of the gap in the corner?
Thanks for the question. I meant to add some more info about that to the end of the video but forgot about it. You can do some of what you are talking about by using the push/pull command and move face command. This is the initial release of sheet metal for Fusion 360. There are two additional updates planned that will bring capabilities such as a corner seam tool in addition to other sheet metal tools.
Watch the tutorial I posted on that. You can change your sheet metal rules or just override them when creating the flanges. Change the bend radius to 0.001" and model the two flanges you want on the outside first with the bend position set to inside. After the first two have been modeled, click the flange tool and select the other two edges also selecting the bend position as inside. They will tuck in.
Where can the bending radius be set ?
am having a sketch how would i come back to folding it
How can we design the sheet metal if we are going to weld the corners ? I would like to create a simple four wall sheetmetal box that will not leak. Thanks
Brian W Hi Brian. There are different corner options that can be set in the rule. One of those corner options is called linear weld. I didn't show that as an option ok the model but you could create a rule that would leave you with only a very small gap for welding.
I will look at that. Thanks for the info.
Solid works is a better or fusion360?
Thanks for this video. But where I'm a press brake operator, I cussed you out for that small flange and also for the obtuse angle bends. Hahaha.
OK, but can I get some credit for orienting the flat pattern so the majority of the bends are up bends? See.....making your job a little better every day ;-)
I used to deign brake metal, and I was thinking there was no way our press supervisor would let that design through.
Honestly I would have orientated the part where most of the beds are down. When you are cutting a part on a laser or whatever other machine you use the better side of the part is always going to be the side of the material you see when it is cutting. If you bend it up from that orientation, when you look at the part the outside of the part is going to have the rougher side of the cut and the part of the material that was sitting on the slats that might have got scratched.